Little Hadding was silent. Hardgreip had clasped him to her dugs. His eyes at those white hillocks, watching the fire die down, were blue and bleak.
III
Gudorm had been well taught about his father’s world. He knew that the Saxons lived south of Jutland, a folk not unlike his. East of them, along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea and inland, were tribes whom the Danes lumped together as Wends and looked on as uncouth and backward, speakers of outlandish tongues. Beyond these, Oardariki reached on into endlessness. Its dwellers were akin to the Wends, and likewise split among chiefdoms and tiny king-doms that could never muster much strength. However, they were more skilled and well off. Some of this they owed to Northerners, who oftener traded with them than raided, and had begun to settle among them, building towns on the great rivers.
Northward from Saxland ran the hills, heaths, woods, and farms of the Jutish peninsula. The Anglians in its southern half marked themselves off from the Jutes elsewhere, but these folk were both of the same stock as other Northerners, with the same speech and ways of life, and no one king had brought either of them together under his sway. Thus the Danes were moving in on them. Already the far end of Jutland, where the Skaw thrusts out into the Skagerrak, was Danish, as all the islands eastward had long been.
The nearest of those islands, across the waters of the Little Belt, was Funen. East of this, across the Great Belt, lay the biggest, Zealand. Many lesser islands were scattered about. Beyond Zealand was the Sound, and beyond this strait, on the mainland, was Scania, likewise Danish.
North of the Scanian shires were the Geats, and north of them the Swedes. However stalwart man for man, the Geats were rather few, and most times acknowledged the overlordship of the Swedish king. His kingdom, Svithjod, widespread, wealthy, and old, was said to have been founded by Odin.
Westward over the mountains was Norway, a clutch of quarrelsome and changeable small realms. Some few were strong enough that they must be reckoned with.
North of all this and back down around the gulf that met the Baltic Sea were the Finns, wild tribesmen with a tongue and gods all their own, not warlike but breeding many wizards.
The Danes believed they had their name from Dan, who ‘long ago hammered them into oneness. However, the kingly house that among them became the rightful one, theirs by the will of the gods, stemmed from Skjold. Tales tell how he came ashore from none knew where, a babe in an oarless boat, his head resting on a sheaf of wheat. He grew up to be so strong and deep-minded that men thought his father must be Odin, who had sent him to them. They hailed him their lord, and well did he do by them, victorious in battle, openhanded in hospitality and gift-giving, just in his judgments, and wise in the laws he laid down.
Still, those were unrestful years, and most of his sons died young, in war, feud, storm at sea, hunting bear or boar, even of sickness. Rather late in life he sought the hand of Alfhild, daughter of the foremost Anglian king. The Saxon Skati wooed her too. He was a jarl at home, second in rank only to his own king. He dared Skjold to settle things by the sword. Skjold killed him in fair fight and, wedded the woman.
She bore Gram, who came to be as mighty as his father. However, he was headstrong and reckless. Nor was he overly kind to women. First he took to wife the daughter of his foster father, then after a while gave her away to a friend of his whose deeds in battle he wanted to reward.
Then he heard that Gro, daughter of the Swedish king Sigtryg, had been betrothed to a thurs. More to win renown than for her sake, he went there with no one along but his friend. Dressed in hides of goat and wild beast, a club in his hand, he met her in a woodland as she rode with her serving maids to a pool where she would bathe. Horror smitten, she thought he must be a jotun himself. Still, when his man spoke to her on his behalf, she boldly defied him, until at length Gram cast off his hairy dress and roared with laughter at his trick. Her heart, suddenly lightened, turned to him and he soon had his will of her.
This meant war with King Sigtryg. Wizards said that only gold could fell him. Gram bound a lump of gold to a shaft, sought out the other man, and smashed his head open. Afterward he met Sigtryg’s. brothers on the field and slew them.
Gro bore him Gudorm, as well as girl children, but she was no longer a happy woman.
Somewhat later Gram’s mother Alfhild died. Old King Skjold soon followed her. His grieving folk loaded a ship with treasure, laid him therein, and set her asail over the sea, back into the unknown whence he had come.
Thereupon they hailed Gram their king. By war and wiles he set about bringing the Swedes, who now had no firm leadership, under himself.
Svipdag was king in Ranriki, where southern Norway faces out on the Skagerrak. He too was a hard-driving warrior, who overcame his neighbors and took lordship throughout those parts around the great bay. But he was an Yngling, of the house that had always ruled in Svithjod. A forebear of his, a younger son, had gone to Norway and taken sword-land for lack of anything better. Svipdag felt he had more right to Svithjod and its wealth than any Skjoldung. He raged to see Gram forestalling him.
His time came after years. Gram was making slow headway, for not only the Swedes but the Geats fought him stubbornly. So one summer he set off instead against Sumbli, a Norseman who had seized mastery over a
